JAY-Z on His Relationship with Kanye West, Solange

JAY-Z has been riding high this summer on the success of 4:44, his record-setting thirteenth studio album. When the record dropped, his bold allusions to personal matters drew headlines: Was he dissing Kanye West on “Kill Jay Z?” Had he really put the infamous elevator incident with Solange behind him?

From the content of Lemonade to the Met Gala incident, fans and critics were eager to cross-reference his new lyrics with real-life drama. So JAY-Z cleared the air a bit in a new interview with Rap Radar.

On the matter of Kanye West, Jay said he had other things in mind while writing “Kill Jay Z.” But he didn’t pull any punches when evaluating their relationship in 2017.

“It’s not even about Kanye,” Jay said. “It really isn’t. His name is there because it’s just truthful, what happened. The whole point is you got hurt because this guy was talking about you on a stage but what really hurt me was you can’t bring my kids and my wife into it… We’ve gotten past bigger issues but you brought my family into it and that’s a problem with me… He knows it’s a problem. Me and him would have talked about it. We would’ve been resolved our issue. He knows that he crossed the line… We’ve never let this much space go between one of our disagreements and we’ve had many.”

Also, Hova says he’s in a good place with sister-in-law Solange Knowles—who physically attacked him in the now-infamous elevator footage from 2014.

“We’ve always had a great relationship,” he said. “I fought my brothers and argued with my brothers my whole life. It just so happened that who we are, these things go into a different space. It ain’t nothing. That’s my sister, not my sister-in-law… my sister. Period.”